


singing out loud made us this way

by aceofdiamonds



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 04:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10983777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: Sawyer calls her Red which is definitely the least original thing she's ever heard so all she does is roll her eyes but it annoys Jon, his body tightening whenever Sawyer walks past, a glare held out at him.“Calm it, Curly,” Sawyer always drawls, which, again, come on. “I’m not after your girl.”That seems to be the presumed relationship between them. Not many people on the plane travelled together and those that did have assumptions made about them. It’s easier to let them lie, everything else seems more complicated, and who really cares when they're trapped on an island.jon and sansa and oceanic flight 815.





	singing out loud made us this way

**Author's Note:**

> i had the idea for this last may, wrote some of it, got hit again and again by writer’s block and complex lost plotlines from too many years ago, and finally wrote the second half over the last fortnight. i’ve even had the title since last may, which never happens, so thanks various storms and saints by florence and the machine for continuing to provide relevant lyrics for this pairing. let's not even pretend this matches the lost timeline more than very very vaguely.

  
  
  
So Australia isn't the best place to end a relationship. In a country where she knows no one, is scared for her life, and has no means to get home, Sansa thinks it's fair to say that she's afraid.  
  
But she swallows her pride and she picks up her phone and she phones home, the phone cradled awkwardly in the crook of her sling as she juggles the slice of pizza and the few slivers of change she has left.  
  
"Mum?" she says as soon as the phone is picked up.  
  
But it's Jon who says, "Hello? Sansa?" and that throws her through a loop so much she holds the phone away from her face, checks the number is right. "Sansa, are you okay?" she hears, noise tinny with the distance.  
  
"Jon, what are you doing there?" which might be rude but this is a situation where she doesn’t have second chances.  
  
"Your mum and dad are away for the weekend -- they wanted someone to house sit and look after Nymeria. How are you?" he asks again, more urgent. He's always been perceptive, Jon has.  
  
Sansa blows past this question, focuses on the different. "Oh." This changes things. But not completely. "Jon, I need help."  
  


.  


  
By way of a miracle Sansa doesn't question Jon is standing in front of her in Sydney 40 hours later. The last dregs of battery allow her phone to feebly light up with Jon's arrival and then she's shoving her book into her bag and hurrying through the terminals until, yes, there he is. To see someone she knows, someone she's known forever, here in this airport during the worst week of her life is enough to bring her close to tears. But now's not the time for crying so she drags a hand over her nose and then she pulls out that smile she's been working on.  
  
He's smiling too, relieved, and then he really sees her and his expression drops, jumping into the deep end. "Your _arm's_ broken?"  
  
"It's a clean break," she says immediately which is how she's been dealing with it herself. The bruises dotted across her neck and chest are harder to explain away but Jon can't see those yet. "It'll heal fine," she rushes on. "Jon, I can't believe you're here. Thank you so much."  
  
He doesn't wave this away as Robb would, instead he accepts the gravity of the situation with a nod of his head and gestures to a bench off to the side. Sansa collapses on it gratefully as though she hasn't spent the last three hours sitting three corridors along. She's been so tired recently. She needs to go home.  
  
"I got the first flight out," he says unnecessarily given that he's here right now. His hair is scraped back in a bun, a small overnight bag slung over his shoulder, and he's fidgeting and fidgeting the way he does when he doesn't know what to say but _gods_ , Sansa's so happy he's here he could say nothing at all and that would be enough.  
  
"I thought you would pass me on to Mum and that would be it," she admits, head dropping into her hands before she remembers the sling and the break. She keeps her head where it is, though. This is a conversation she doesn't really want eye contact for. "I didn't think you would come."  
  
"You didn't hear your voice, Sansa," Jon replies, sounding very far away.  "I called your mum, let her know what was happening, and then looked up flights."  
  
"Nymeria?" Sansa asks into her hands, finding the idea of a dog startlingly funny in amongst this nightmare.  
  
"Sam's looking after her."  
  
Sansa nods. "Right." She nods again, focuses on not crying some more, and then cringes when her next words come out shaky. "When can we go home?"  
  
This is where she hears Jon sigh and his hand comes to rest on her back, touch light as though this is too much.  
  
"The quickest and cheapest way I can get us home is via Los Angeles," he says, hesitant, like this girl he flew across the world to rescue might lash out at him for picking a less convenient way home.  
  
Sansa lifts her head now, works over what Jon said. "LA?"  
  
"We've got a layover of a couple of hours but we end up getting home before any going any other route," he explains. The hand on her back is patting gently, his anxiety manifesting itself onto his comfort for her.  
  
"That's fine, Jon," and it is. "Anything that gets me off this island is perfect."  
  
With this she straightens up, tips her head back, and focuses on the fluorescent airport lights. Now that they have a plan and now that she knows she's getting home, her chest opens in fractions until she feels like she can almost breathe. It'll be that first gulp of stale American airport air that'll really allow her to relax, though, so she crosses the fingers of her good hand and begins counting down the seconds.  


  
. 

  
  
They check into a motel three blocks from the airport, a small musty room with a tiny bed and a shower that only runs cold. But the door locks and the curtains close and those touches of safety are enough for now.  
  
"Where is he?" Jon finally voices the question that has been sitting in his chest since the phone call as they sit cross-legged on the bed facing each other, two sandwiches and a packet of crisps spread out in front of them.  
  
"I don't know," Sansa answers and it's honest. After the broken arm and the worst of the bruises that still make her wince when she moves too quickly she had shoved the closest things to hand into a bag and got the hell out of there. She'd had a slew of missed calls and voicemails she knew were too angry to listen to the next morning but by then she was 1000 miles away, thanks to the downward curve of her mouth, her overall appearance, and the understanding of several Australians on their way to Sydney. "I haven't seen him since --" she raises her sling slightly, considers telling the story and then sighs and keeps it until she gets home; once will be enough. "-- I haven't seen him in a while. He doesn't know I'm in Sydney."  
  
Jon scrunches his face up the way he always used to when Bran would pull out some crazy conspiracy theory. He doesn't agree with what Sansa is saying, is what it means.  
  
"I just want to go home, Jon," she continues, hand reaching out to touch his arm briefly. "Let's go to bed," even though it's light outside and neither is calm enough to sleep.  
  
She knows what it's like to feel helpless when it comes to someone else but she also knows that there's a time to drop it. She hopes Jon knows this is the latter.  
  
"Night, Sansa," he murmurs from his makeshift bed on the floor.  
  
"Night," she whispers back and, although she's always been one to run through a number of sheep before she can relax enough to sleep, the last three days slam into her and she closes her eyes, dead to the world.  


 

.

  
  
  
That doesn't stop her hearing Jon ease the door open in the middle of the night, already talking quietly into his phone. She catches snippets of _somewhere far from Sydney_ and _bleached blond with an English accent and a face you could punch_ and _yeah, I wouldn't normally ask you to go this far but he deserves it._  
  
Sansa puts two and two together and although it's going against her telling him to leave it she can't pretend she doesn't feel a little more secure knowing that Jon has ways and means of doing what needs to be done. The pacifist in her was drilled out of her the first time he threw a punch.  
  
She rolls over and goes to sleep and in the morning she doesn't mention anything, just smiles as she hands Jon his coffee. 

 

.

  
  
If asked, Sansa would say she's an alright flier. The seats aren't always the comfiest but it usually gives her a chance to read the books or watch the films she's been meaning to get around to. The turbulence always has her gripping the seats, sure, but that's normal, right?  
  
The first shake has her doing just that, her knuckles white as she clings on to the arm rests between Jon and the worryingly pregnant girl on her other side.  
  
It's the second one that elicits a scream from a woman behind her, several others following. Sansa glances down at her hands and then at the way Jon's are mirroring hers. When she looks up at his face he opens his mouth to say something reassuring but another shake and another set of screams cut him off.  
  
"Are you okay?" Sansa asks the girl, the question superfluous when the oxygen masks have fallen and Sansa's ear is throbbing where it banged against the headrest. But the girl is rubbing a hand over her stomach, grimacing, and when the next shake hits she whimpers. "It's going to be fine," she says because if there's anything she's learned in life is that you have to fake it till you make it and sometimes you have to pretend everything's okay if that helps someone else.  
  
The girl nods frantically, her willingness to believe anything Sansa is saying a show of how desperate they're getting. Sansa thinks this is helping, though, however selfish it may be -- focusing on the girl beside her is allowing her to ignore the chaos happening in the rest of the plane.  
  
The shaking has stepped up to the point where it feels like they're dangling from a puppet string controlled by an overexcited baby.  
  
Things bang and bags drop and people are flying everywhere and Sansa can do nothing but hold on and close her eyes and hope that that thunk she just heard had nothing to do with Jon because she can't bear the look other way.  
  
The tails breaks off pulling in a burst of air that drags half the cabin with it and this is when this is when this is when this is when  
  
Sansa passes out.  
  


.  
  


 

.

  


Her first thoughts when she opens her eyes is if this is some sort of paradise afterlife. She's always been of the belief that heaven is catered to the individual but this, this hot sandy beach with palm trees and not a cloud in the sky, is miles away from the icy landscape she's always imagined.  
  
This, coupled with the bodies scattered across the beach, some moving, many not, brings her to the decision that no, she isn't dead, not yet.  
  
The soundtrack to this realisation is a woman screaming to the point where Sansa lifts a hand to her mouth to check it's not coming from her.  
  
It isn't, and when she sits up and looks around her she finds the source in a girl about her age with short blonde hair and terror on her face.  
  
Her next thought after empathising with the screaming is to find Jon. Jon has to be okay, she clings on to that as she stumbles through the sand in her bare feet, Converse abandoned by a tree and any statistics of plane crashes pushed to the back of her mind.  
  
She makes it two steps before someone crosses her path. "Are you okay?" they ask before she can do the same because they've got blood running down their face. Looking around, though, that seems normal in this situation.  
  
“I’m fine,” she mutters, moving on once she’s made sure the other person isn't going to drop dead.

“I’m Hugo, by the way,” he shouts after her. “Feel we should be exchanging names,” he adds in a lower tone. “What's yours?”

Sansa waves him off. There’ll be time for that later. Or, actually, hopefully there won't be. Once the rescue comes.

  


.  


 

She doesn’t find Jon so much as stumbles over him. She lands in the hot sand with an _oof_ , her legs tangling with a bag strap and Jon’s hand reaching out to help.

“Your head is cut,” is what she manages when she’s climbed over the relief that they’re both alive (But what does _alive_ mean on a place like this?). Jon’s eyes flutter closed and he looks so tired all Sansa wants to do is find him a blanket and let him sleep but they have to get moving, they have to find help. “You don’t have any injuries you’re hiding from me, do you?”

“I’m all in one piece,” he croaks. “I just need to --” He coughs. “-- just need to lie here for a minute.”

Sansa’s throat constricts. A scream follows and again she wonders if it came from her. This place is unsettling, strange, the thought of her body charging on ahead of her makes her want to let go and leave the living for the rest of them, good luck to them.

The scream has Jon shuffling into a sitting position, shaking sand from his arms and from his hair. The fatigue shifts into determination. “You’re okay, Sansa?” he checks, hands fluttering over her, dancing close to and then away again from the cut on her head.

Sansa reaches up with both hands to meet his, to reassure him she’s alive, and he is too and isn’t this a goddamn miracle but now they need to do what they can to help everyone else. She reaches up with her hands and then she catches Jon’s frown and oh, her arm was broken earlier, and now it’s not.

“I don’t like this place, Jon,” she says as she turns her wrist and she doesn’t even feel a twinge. The cast is wet; it comes away in pieces that Sansa crumples and stuffs in an abandoned shoe, useless now.

“We’ll be going home soon.” The first of Jon’s promises.

Sansa leans on that promise and gets to her feet, reaching out her hand to help Jon up. It’s as they survey the beach, the wreckage, the devastation, that she comes to the sobering conclusion that for the two of them to be in one piece, for the two of them to be alive, is so fucking lucky.

With a final glance at each other, Jon moves forward to help a recently resuscitated woman who keeps asking for Bernard and Sansa looks for the girl with the baby she fell from the sky with.

  


.

  


The first 48 hours pass in a blur of desperation and pre-made tensions exploding within the camp. For these first crucial hours Sansa keeps to herself, only speaking to Jon and occasionally Claire as the rest of the group divides.

In those first forty-eight hours a number of unbelievable things occur, including a polar bear and sentient smoke. Throughout this, people rise to the occasion and begin their bid for rescue. The dead are moved, covered, and eventually buried, but not right now, not when there’s still the hope of someone coming for them that will make this all redundant.

Sansa helps lift a women by the feet as Hugo takes her head. It’s time for names now, she thinks, as she shares this sobering moment with a man with curly hair and a manner that fluctuates between cheerful and despairing.

“I’m Sansa,” she says, as they gently lay the woman down. She doesn’t have a scratch on her, and sometimes that’s even harder, when you can’t see anything tangible and all the damage has exploded inside. “Sorry about before.”

Hugo raises his hands. “Don’t worry about it, Sansa, everyone in bits. Oh, wait, I didn’t mean that... literally.”

Sansa winces. “That’s Jon over there,” she says, points over at Jon who is sitting with Rose, taking his turn to listen to her insistence that her husband is alive in the tail section that can’t be found.

“Jack likes the look of him,” Hugo says with the words of someone bluffing to appear more in the loop. He goes on to make the assumption most people seem to about Jon. “Has he served?”

“Three years a few years ago. He was honourably discharged.” Sansa always feels the need to say this when people hear Jon was in the army for such a short time compared to others. “His hand.”

Hugo leads the way back to the others, for the next one, and then the next. “You know, people are saying this island’s got some sort of healing.”

“Sounds like you’re the man people tell things to,” Sansa deflects from the way she can bend her fingers and turn her wrist like it wasn’t wrenched behind her back a fortnight ago until it cracked in three places.

Hugo likes this, she can tell, and then they lift a man with an arm and a leg missing and the conversation can’t be carried on after that.

  


.

  


It doesn't rain for days and then it pours. Tents are dragged under the protection of the forest; people scramble for their washing, their food.

Sansa ducks under the shelter of an overhanging branch, the leaves spotted with drops of water that crash onto her shoulders when Locke moves past her into the deeper forest.

“Crazy, huh?” Claire says, gestures to the weather to signify exactly what brand of crazy she’s referring to.

“It feels almost a relief,” Sansa replies. She runs a hand through her hair, tips her head towards the rain. “Maybe that makes me crazy.”

But Claire laughs, shakes her head. “Anything to get us through this,” she says.

A comfortable silence follows. After a few minutes with the rain giving no sign of letting up Sansa helps maneuver Claire onto a patch of dry sand on the ground, makes sure she has support for her back and access to the water Rose is offering around.

“I feel terrible,” Claire sighs, a hand at her waist to ease her back. “There’s so much to do and all I can do is sit around like a whale.”

“If anyone has an airtight excuse it’s you,” Sansa points out. She finds a space beside Claire, their knees bumping. Another splash falls onto Sansa’s cheek -- she fashions them makeshift covers out of the larger leaves, the two of them giggling at the sight of the other. Sansa’s mother always said she was good at making friends at school, if only she could see her now on this island. “How are you feeling?”

“Sansa, can I ask you something?” Claire asks in lieu of an answer.

There’s that false easiness everyone has ingrained into them when they’re curious, when they want something they know they don’t have a good chance of getting. Sansa hesitates before she nods but Claire isn’t a closed book, she’s sure there’s no ulterior motive behind her.

“Go ahead.”

“You already know so much about me, what with --” she points at her belly, her story. “I just wondered what you were doing in Australia?”

Sansa could lie here, conceal the part of her that is still aching with fear, but Claire’s right and she has nothing to lose. She frames her confession in small harmless shards. “I moved out with my boyfriend a few months ago; we were going to start a new life there.” She pitches the words with more scepticism than she ever has previously. Claire nods, listening. “It was good at first, it felt like a long holiday, you know? And then, well, things didn’t work out, things got worse quickly, and now he’s my ex.”

“I’ve got one of them too,” Claire replies after a quiet moment. “Mine was a bastard as well,” she offers her shoulder in a gentle nudge of camaraderie. “Look at it this way: we escaped.”

Sansa manages a wisp of a laugh. The rain disappears as suddenly as it came, sun opening up across the surreal island they have to call home for the moment. “Yeah. We showed them.”

  


.

  


Sawyer calls her Red which is definitely the least original thing she's ever heard so all she does is roll her eyes but it annoys Jon, his body tightening whenever Sawyer walks past, a glare held out at him.

“Calm it, Curly,” Sawyer always drawls, which, again, come on. “I’m not after your girl.”

That seems to be the presumed relationship between them. Not many people on the plane travelled together and those that did have assumptions made about them. It’s easier to let them lie, everything else seems more complicated, and who really cares when they're trapped on an island.

  


.

  


(The first time Jon kissed Sansa she was twenty and he was twenty-two, not long discharged, not long feeling lost. To Sansa, he had been Robb’s brother, a family friend that had spent most of their childhoods in the room across the hall, in the seat next to her at the dining table, on the opposite team in the annual water fights. She hadn't thought much past that but it had been a long summer where they found themselves spending more time with each other than not, mostly due to the absence of the rest of the Starks at various houses and clubs, and also down to the similarities they'd never been aware of until they sat down and discussed it. The kiss had been the result of long talks and a couple of glasses of wine to tilt their confidence. Sansa always remembers the way Jon’s eyes had stayed closed for a few more seconds when they had broke apart, a sliver of a smile on his lips. She hasn’t come close to that feeling since.)

  


.

  


“Is there a plan?” Jon asks as the first week comes to a close and the camp are still spread out on the beach, the wreck of the plane a looming reminder that death is close, and tensions bursting out of nowhere every hour or so. Some people have the skills and abilities to live in the forest, to live off the land, but this group of people have crash landed here from a flight between two of the most privileged countries of the world and no one here has the knowledge or the temperament to make much of what they have.

That’s not to say they aren’t trying but seven days is too long and Sansa doesn’t want to stick around to see if she’ll be one of the ones who manages to make it. Survival of the fittest has never been a strong argument for her, not when your brain can’t fight its corner.

Jack eyes Jon, his hands on his hips, eyes squinting in the sun. He has Kate beside him, Charlie and Boone hovering -- this is their leader, wanted or not, and Jon is speaking up, demanding answers. “Do you have a plan, Jon?” Jack asks, open to suggestions until he can decide if he agrees with it or not.

But Jon is bold with his lack of knowledge, owning up to the fact that none of them really know what’s going on here, none of them, including Jack or Sayid or Locke, really know what the island is capable of. Jon stands opposite them and says, “No, I don’t, but I do think we need to open up communication and let everyone know what’s happening.”

Kate opens her mouth, defends their actions, with, “There’s keeping everyone informed and then there’s causing unnecessary panic.”

Jon opens his hands wide in a conciliatory gesture. “I know that, and I know that knowledge is vital. I was in the army --” with this, he pauses, looks around the camp, and says, “I don’t know if that was obvious enough yet,” and with a wry smile he gets a laugh. “And it’s important to have organisation and a clear train of command and of thought and --.” He pauses again and now Sansa can see him floundering. For all that you might assume about brave Jon Snow and his speeches and his heroism, he doesn’t love attention, and now he has a group of displaced people listening to him and forming opinions and wow, Sansa’s feeling a bit under the spotlight and she’s standing ten feet away from him.

“Can I say something?” She crosses the gulf between her and Jon, wondering if this is her metaphorically and firmly taking a stance she doesn’t necessarily want to be making.

“This has never been a dictatorship,” Jack says, which is true, he’s the one that stepped up and took control and now he’s facing backlash for it.

“I know,” Sansa agrees. “But Jon’s right -- there is a lot of back scene discussions and sudden announcements that leave people a bit out of place, right?” She appeals to Rose, who loves Jack, but who also has endless opinions. She gets a nod of support to push her on. “So why doesn’t Jon come with you, wherever you’re going, just for today? And he can relay back information and we can all feel a bit more informed.”

“There’s more spaces if other people want to come,” Charlie offers, “But someone should stay with Claire,” because she’s his top priority. “I’ve got no business standing here but I asked and here I am.”

“So who else is coming on the trek?” Jack asks, “Because we need to leave now to cover enough ground and be back before sunset.”

Jon leaves, kissing Sansa’s cheek as a quiet thanks.

Sansa sits with Rose and Claire, the former telling her, “You’ve got a good one there.”

  


.

 

  
"Sansa Stark, 22, the end of the world," Sansa says when Hugo comes around with his clipboard and roster.  
  
"That's very similar to Shannon's answer," Hugo replies, making a note.  
  
Sansa likes Shannon. She admires her optimism. Sansa likes to think she's an optimistic person but even she's beginning to realise they're never getting rescued.  
  
"Do you think they're coming for us, Hugo?" she asks while she's got him here. For so many people being trapped in a small part of the world, it can be a lonely place.  
  
"Who? The Others? Depends who you believe -- Jack or Sawyer."  
  
Sansa rolls her eyes. "Not the Others," and honestly, she's trying not to think too much about them. In times like this she likes to trust Jack's logic and Jon's strong reassurances when it comes to Claire. "Do you think we'll be rescued?"  
  
Hugo winces, doesn't reply, and then he coughs and says, "Is Jon your brother?"  
  
"No. Just a family friend."  
  
Hugo nods at this, doesn't comment. "And could you tell me his details? He's off with Jack somewhere."  
  
"Jon Snow, 25, Glasgow," which is decidedly less bitter but isn't that always the way with Jon?  
  
"Reason for flying Sydney to LA?" The way Hugo asks this is hesitant, like he's not really sure if he should be asking as it's not strictly necessary, and maybe he's had a few replies telling him so.  
  
Sansa follows. "That's private."  
  
"Of course," and with that, he leaves, approaching a couple who Sansa _thinks_ might be Nikki and Paulo but they keep to themselves even more than Sansa and Jon.

Sansa can't help but wish she answered so she could ask in return. She's always been curious, or nosy, to put it a little blunter. With all these people here, many travelling alone, the rumour mill turns and turns, snippets of gossip of people’s back stories reaching Sansa’s ears, wanted or not. There’s been something about Kate, a few things about Sawyer, and wary glances at Jin and what his treatment of Sun suggests of their past lives. But Sansa doesn’t want anyone prying into her life so she keeps her mouth shut and  her head down.

  


.

  


Death has come before in the form of strangers gone before they hit the sand, in the form of those who succumbed to their injuries, and then like the Marshall, a case that makes Sansa squirm still thinking about it. Now it barges into the group that has come to survive together, to know each other, maybe not as friends, but as dependants, as more than strangers.

Boone’s funeral takes place at dusk as the sun that won't leave hovers above the water. Sayid sits by Shannon who shakes but doesn't cry, staring into the fire with a look that makes Sansa’s heart ache.

Sansa leans her head on Jon’s shoulder, closes her eyes, and has one of those increasingly rare moments where she feels lucky to be alive, lucky to have a piece of home with her.

After it’s over Sansa slips her hand into Jon’s and leads him along the beach, walking until the murmurs of the camp drop away and they’re standing in a silence made up of the gentle whoosh of waves that they no longer notice.

“It’s stupid,” she says, when she opens her mouth to say something else entirely and hears her voice crack. “We barely knew Boone, there hasn’t been enough time, but -- for some reason I thought since we could heal, we wouldn’t die.”

Jon wraps his arms around her, burrows his face in her neck, and Sansa realises that she’s not the only one dealing with that discovery. “We’re not immortal, Sansa,” Jon says, voice quiet. “And I still can’t decide if we’re the luckiest or unluckiest people on the planet.”

“That changes day to day,” Sansa agrees. She cards a hand through Jon’s hair, happy to be the one comforting for once. “Right now, it’s the former. We have our lives and we have each other.”

“And we’re on an island with no sign of rescue,” Jon says, tipping the balance back. He pulls back, pulls himself together. In moments like these Sansa can see all too clearly the effect warfare has had on him. He deserves a quieter life than this, despite the universe telling him otherwise.

“Hey, what have I always told you about being a pessimist?”

“And what have I told you about being realistic?” he counters.

“If all we had to go on was realism there’d be a lot less of us here today,” Sansa says, a sad fact but true.

Jon doesn’t reply to this; instead he takes a long look out across the sea, at the setting sun which hasn’t quite become boring yet, and then he cocks his head back towards camp. “We better get back -- you know what Jack and Sayid are like about strays.”

Sansa doesn’t think Sayid will notice they’re gone with all his attention on the grief radiating from Shannon but she nods, reaching out for Jon’s hand again.

As they walk Sansa picks up the words that have been cutting her throat ever since she opened her eyes to the screaming of the first day and spits them into the sand. “It’s my fault that you’re here, Jon,” she says. “And I haven’t apologised for that or even thanked you.”

Jon waits until they’ve reached the outskirts of the tents before he says, in a tone Sansa hasn’t heard him use before, “Don’t you remember that I’m always going to be here, Sansa? I’ve got you.”

  


.

  


(The first time Sansa met Jon, she had been ten, walking home from school. She had left Jeyne at the main road, the two going opposite directions, and there had only been a few minutes until she was home, but boys from the secondary school across town suddenly surrounded her out of nowhere. Sansa had been a quiet thing outside the comforts of her home, usually friendly, always popular, but quiet, and still this moment rushes back to her whenever she wishes she was louder, stronger, braver. The boys had surrounded her, jeering, laughing, noisy, and Sansa had pushed them, had spun in a desperate circle but they came closer and closer --

And then they disappeared and Sansa was left blinking up at this boy who had appeared from nowhere, her savior. Jon had checked her over, made sure she was okay, and then walked her the rest of the way home without saying a word.

Maybe she should’ve known since then that he would always save her.)

  


.

  


As if the island has been waiting to show how contrary it can be, as one dies, another is given to them. Sansa’s been up and down about religion over the years but there’s a universality in the faith of _as one door closes another opens_.

Aaron Littleton is born hours after Boone’s death, Claire’s labour unexpected and led by Kate, a position, she tells Sansa later, has scared her more than anything else she’s had to do on the island,

“See?” Sansa says, when she and Jon visit Claire and the tiny baby. Charlie hovers protectively, barely letting them close enough to see, but Claire rolls her eyes and beckons them over. “See, Jon? A little optimism goes a long way.”

“Are you using my baby as a shining hope, Sansa?” Claire asks, tired smile tilting her lips. “Are you using my son to convince Jon this isn’t such a bad place?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Claire, so you get some well-earned rest and don’t tell him anything bad.”

“I can appreciate the miracle of life,” Jon protests, kneeling to look at Aaron. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” Claire sighs, and Sansa snorts.

“How does this compare to falling out of the sky?”

“Jon!” Sansa hits his shoulder.

But Claire waves it off. “Hey, how many people can have that comparison? Somehow, miraculously, I’ve survived both, so --” She twists her hand through the air, shrugs.

“Okay, you’ve both successfully brought down the mood,” Charlie intervenes. “I think Claire needs real rest now, not thinking about every awful thing that’s happened to her.”

“So that’s our reputation, huh?” Jon says as they leave. “Bringing down the mood.”

“Well we haven’t killed anyone and we haven’t saved anyone so what other category can we be in?”

“I never expected survivors of a plane crash to be so cliquey,” which is a good point but Sansa’s realised that life after school doesn’t always have to be so different. She leads them over to the group who are doing laundry and making food -- they’re definitely The Cool Ones.

  


.

  


“What do you think our family are feeling?” Jon asks, pulling the clothes off the washing line and passing them to Sansa to fold. It’s a public place for an intimate conversation but where are you going to get much better and anyway, it’s a frequently asked question around the camp.

“They’ll think we’re dead,” Sansa replies quietly, the answer one she came to a few days after the crash, past the window of likely recovery. For days after she couldn’t get the image of her mum answering the door or seeing the news or getting a phone call to say that a plane, a plane Sansa wasn’t meant to be on until hours before, had gone missing, survivors unlikely. When she was younger she loved having a big family but now she knows that it means more people to miss, more people to worry when things go wrong, and she can’t move past the reactions of Rickon, of Arya, of the family she said goodbye too so quickly when she moved to the other side of the world. “They’ll think we’re lying at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Sansa,” Jon says, groan tipping into his voice. He nods at Walt who’s hovering too near them to not overhear.

“It’s been a month, Jon,” Sansa fires back, suddenly tired of hope. “Everyone’s been saying it. There’s no rescue coming and Robb and everyone else have no idea that we’re still breathing.”

Walt comes over then, says that there’s always hope, but at the moment that sounds like the impossible.

  


.

  


“Live together die alone,” Sansa whispers to Jon late in the tent following half the group’s decision to stay on the beach.

“That’s Jack’s saying,” Jon whispers back.

“It has merit, if slightly overdramatic,” and she doesn’t let on that she clings to the mantra as much as Jack does.

  


.

  


Jack’s not a pushover but Sansa puts on her whiny voice and her big eyes and he sighs and says, “Sure, Sansa, it’s only me and Kate back at the hatch tonight so the shower’s free.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Jack,” Sansa says which she imagines he gets called a lot, being a surgeon in his Other Life and team leader in this one on top of that. It’s odd, Sansa is realising, what traits have stayed with them on their stay on the island. The last few weeks in Australia and escaping the place she was in, mentally and physically, altered a lot about her; she’s become more serious, a little less optimistic, all-round steelier. But the flicker of interest in gossip has stayed and Sansa knows all about the Jack-Kate-Sawyer mess that has been unfolding around them because lust and love doesn’t stop for plane crashes. In fear of losing her shower privilege, though, she doesn’t wonder aloud how Sawyer feels about these sleeping arrangements. “I think I’ve forgot what hot water feels like,” she says instead and that gets a safer eye-roll from Jack.

“The next time we’re asked what three things we’d take to a desert island hot water’s going to appear on a lot more lists,” Jack replies, which, like almost everything he says, surprises Sansa by making her laugh.

“If only they knew.”

“What would be on your list?” Jack asks as he leads the way down into the hatch. For all the excitement over it and the death of Boone, Sansa has only been here once before. Jon’s avoided it altogether; he doesn’t trust it.

“I think I’d be one for the hot water,” she admits. “You?”

“A proper first aid kit,” Jack replies, predictably, and drags down the mood considerably. But then he grins. “I'm missing whiskey but don't tell anyone that.”

“We’re all missing whiskey,” Sansa laughs, keeps his secret.

  


.

  


She takes her shower, the clean hot water glorious after so long without. There’s no conditioner but in this case beggars can’t be choosers so she rinses out the shampoo, scrubs the dirt from her body, and climbs out. She’s just finished dragging her clothes back on when a clang sounds and Kate shouts.

When she hurries into the main room she sees the computer flashing and Jack and Kate on the other side of the shutters, caught up in tending a wound on Kate’s back

“Sansa. Now.”

Her hands flutter over the keyboard, twitchy from nerves and fear, all thoughts of numbers running from her head. “What are they again?”

“4 8 15 16 23 42,” Kate shouts through the shutters.

The alarm blares and all Sansa can do is count down the seconds to whatever the hell’s going to happen next. She has the frantic thought that nothing could surprise her after the last couple of weeks but she's scared.

The alarm blares and Sansa jolts back in to Kate’s urgent repetition of the numbers and Jack’s encouragement.

_4 8 15 16 23 42_

It's anticlimactic when the shutters slide open and Sansa, Jack, and Kate are left staring at each other, dampness at Sansa’s eyes and a wash of relief pouring out of Kate’s.

“I’m sorry,” she says, automatic, always good at that. “I panicked.”

“Hey,” Kate says, approaching Sansa, her face curving into one of those rare smiles. “We're all in over our heads here, Sansa. You did fine.” She touches Sansa’s shoulder on her way past, glancing back at Jack when she adds, “I did the exact same thing the first time I was here,” which Sansa knows is a white lie but she grabs onto it anyway.

The three of them walk back to camp when Hurley and Libby arrive for their shift. Sansa keeps her head down, worries, worries, as Jack and Kate whisper whatever it is they’re always whispering.

As they approach the outer circle of tents Kate goes on ahead to meet Claire as Jack hangs back. “Sansa,” he tells her, always that steady gaze, that bedside manner never leaving him. “You and Jon have been a great help from day one -- don’t focus on this.”

“If only I’d been a surgeon in my past life,” Sansa jokes. “Maybe then I could’ve been more help.”

“Being a surgeon really isn’t as exciting as it sounds,” Jack disagrees, laughing at Sansa’s raised eyebrow. “What was it you were doing before this? I’m sorry, I’ve never asked.”

“It’s ridiculous you haven’t found the time to find out everything about us,” Sansa agrees. “I did a little of this, a little of that,” keeps it suitably vague.

“Well, I’m sure we can find something that covers that,” Jack promises.

“What were you and Jack laughing about?” Jon asks when Sansa finds him making lunch.

“Nothing.” She waves it off.

  


.

  


(That summer, the one where Jon and Sansa talked and laughed and bonded, they had kissed -- hmm, four times? Or was it five? Does it count when it’s a kiss on the cheek for a birthday? Probably not.

Anyway, what Sansa remembers most about that summer is learning so much more about Jon, the boy who saved her once upon a time and who became a fixture in their house thanks to Robb. She remembers sitting for hours and hours, never running out of things to say. Jon had told her about his time in the army, the people he met, and he had stumbled through the events surrounding the attack that had resulted in him balancing inches from death. He had told her about his mother, his absent father, and about Ygritte, the woman he lost.

There had been an ease to it all that Sansa found herself longing for when months later she had listened to the boy who had broken her before’s pleas that he had changed, that he begged her forgiveness and that he had a new opportunity out in Australia, please go with him, it’ll be a real adventure.

There had been something holding her back, something looking and sounding a bit like Jon, the boy she had grown up with and the man she had only recently really gotten to know, but when she told him about the plan for Australia, he had shrugged, said it sounded great, yeah, you’re right, that dick’s really changed, and Sansa had hugged him goodbye, got on the plane, and knocked her life off-course.

That summer, though. If there’s a block of time to relive, and hey, who’s to say the island won’t eventually force them to do that, Sansa chooses those two months where Jon had unravelled his story beside her, she had spoken about things in her heart she’d never put words to before, and she had felt his mouth on hers.)

  


.

  


“Where do the mysteries of this place end?” Sansa asks Jon a few days later as they take their turn in the hatch -- she’s one of the trusted few now, if only through the fear of experienced mistakes.

Jon looks up from the diagrams on the wall he’s been studying to try and find out more about the Dharma Initiative. “They don’t,” he replies, frowning, which is something Sansa should've expected.

“We feel like we get one thing under control and then -- boom. Walt’s been taken by the Others. And then  -- boom. Shannon dies.” Listing them like this helps her compartmentalise, helps her not fall apart as the people around them seem to be dropping like flies and it’s only through luck and Jon’s inherent suspicions that they’re still alive.  

“Are you ever going to tell me everything that happened in Australia, Sansa?” Jon asks.

“Not right now,” she replies, pushing on when Jon opens his mouth. “I can’t at the minute, Jon, I’m sorry. That all feels like a completely separate life now.”

“I just worry about you,” which is a bolder admission than she’s used to from Jon.

“And I’m not allowed to worry about you?”

He waves her off, tries to turn his attention back to the diagrams. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Sansa crosses the room to rest a hand on his back. There’s something consistently yet continually unexpectedly comforting about the feel of Jon, the tangible connection to home and the life she insists is over beyond the beaches of the island. “You’ve been through a lot, we both have, and I want you to know I’m here for you too. You can’t always be the hero, okay?”

This is accepted with a shrug, a reluctant nod. When Jon turns he rests his forehead on Sansa’s, closes his eyes, and Sansa lets her fingers rest on his neck, gives him a minute. He opens his eyes, still so close to her, and there’s a moment here, one that twists through the warped time of the hatch, and that tugs at the breath in Sansa’s throat. There’s a second where Sansa wonders why she isn’t closing her eyes, why she isn’t following Jon as he slowly, slowly, leans in, and then her eyes are shut, her breathing heavy, and Jon’s lips brush hers for the briefest moment. The kiss doesn’t continue past that first touch but they stand there, close as they can, for moments stacked upon moments. Sansa breathes in and out with the rise and fall of Jon’s chest, focuses on the slow blink of his eyelashes, noticing where they brush his cheek. It’s enough to stand here, to forget the rest of the world, only for a minute, and turn all their attention to each other.

 

.

  


(Sansa was seventeen when Jon signed up. It was something he’d spoken about in the past but had never mentioned enough for it to be taken seriously but with Sansa’s uncle in the army and with Jon not applying to university or wanting to do much of anything else, it shouldn’t have been as big a surprise as it was when Robb came home one day and announced that Jon had signed up, was leaving for training in a fortnight.

Sansa hadn’t grown particularly close with Jon at this point, he was her brother’s best friend, her once upon a time saviour, but there was an excitement in joining the army that Sansa craved. She’d seen the films of the soldiers returning to their families, studied the wars of the past where soldiers were revered by the public, and it was enough to build up a new image of Jon in her head, past the quiet, often sullen boy she’d known before.  

She had waved him goodbye, told him to be safe, and half-heartedly comforted Arya who had always been a bigger fan of him than she had, despite their adventurous first encounter.

And then three years later he had returned from a tour of Afghanistan where he had suffered a horrific hand injury on top of a beating that left him almost dead. Here is where Sansa came in. She came in with her witty jokes that had Jon smiling more than she’d seen him before, with her patience for the slow, hesitant way he’d unravelled his story, with her quiet optimism for a future where he might feel a bit brighter, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of time for that yet.

She sat with Jon, the boy who rescued her once before, the man who signed up for his country, the man who was quiet, kind, funny, in ways she’d never appreciated before. This is where it rolls into the part that’s all been said before, of the hints of romance and of a companionship that had Arya and Robb balking at its existence.

And then of course the offer of Australia comes and Sansa checks that Jon is doing okay, that he’s surrounded by the right people, and then, one more time, she gets on the plane.)

  


.

  


Sansa’s never been a huge reader but there are several stacks of books available and no one minds taking them from the dead. Their smell doesn't linger in the pages the way it does around their clothes. Sansa would bet that half the passengers here have never been huge readers but suddenly they have all this down time and no way to quiet their minds.

She devours cheesy romance novels, the characters’ problems ridiculously small compared to the situation she’s currently in, but she likes that, the escapism, as she swoons along with the main characters, the ones with all their hopes pinned on a man with rock-hard abs and more confidence than he knows what to do with. She curls up on her makeshift bed and reads adventure tales of men and women and even children who have made it through week long desert escapades, kidnappings, and shipwrecks, and lived to tell the tale.

Sawyer sets up a reluctant library when he realises even he’s going to need new material when he finishes the stack of paperbacks he’s accumulated. It brings a sense of normalcy almost, if such a thing is possible, when you finish a book, take it over to the ‘librarian’ and browse for something new. When Sawyer’s had an argument with someone he doesn’t let anyone pick and instead shoves a book in their hand and snaps till they leave -- with this method, Sansa ends up re-reading a lot of books but that’s okay, that adds to the mind-numbing she’s after.

The water-logged copy of _Lord of the Flies_ goes untouched until Sayid eventually burns it, claiming he _doesn’t need anyone getting ideas_.

“I didn’t know you could read, Jon,” Sansa teases, dropping beside him on a patch of sand as close to the water as possible. She’s become more intimate with sand in recent weeks than she could ever wish to be -- it falls out of her knickers when she gets undressed, it grits her teeth, and she swears it is becoming a part of her bloodstream, a part of her for ever more.

Jon doesn’t answer, too focused on his book, so Sansa lays her head on his shoulder and savours the moment of calm, a spare second where there’s not anyone dying or babies being born or threats from the Others or surprises from the tail end of the plane or -- Gods, she could go on and on and on. For now, she forgets about it and focuses on the way Jon still smells a bit like home and the way the sun feels on her arms.

  


.

  


Nightmares filter through the group -- the close proximity means that it’s always obvious when someone has had one but everyone’s polite enough not to mention it.

Sansa’s find their source in the weeks leading up to the solo journey to Sydney and the desperate call home. She’s jerked awake by the punches and the kicks and the horror-esque undressing of a boy she thought she used to love into the skin of a snake. One time she lies there, trapped, as in her dreams she is slowly suffocated by his hand on her throat and it wasn’t until Claire shook her awake that she managed to breathe again.

When it’s Jon’s turn Sansa wakes up before he makes any noise, as though the island has tuned her to the turn of his thoughts. She touches his shoulder, gentle, steady, and when that doesn’t work she says his name, repeats it with a squeeze of his hand, so she doesn’t shock him into consciousness. One early morning when her brain had been fuzzy with sleep she had asked him what it was about, a barrier she wouldn’t have breached otherwise, and he, in the same state, had murmured, “Fire,” and it had been enough to haunt Sansa’s own dreams.

Occasionally, there are nights when they’re both wrenched from sleep by horror images, sometimes the same ones, of being trapped on the island and its hellish inhabitants and deadly secrets, but they’re mostly set in the different strands of their lead-up to the plane, of the years spent apart. On those nights they break away from the sleeping group, pass the people on the guard shift, and walk down to the ocean.

“If there’s one thing I’m grateful of,” Sansa says, stepping into the water, “it’s that I’ve never spent so much time in the ocean before. It’s beautiful.”

“When you’re standing here,” Jon agrees, “with this view -- it’s almost possible to forget we’re not here by choice.”  

  


.

  


And, then, of course, because, listen, the island likes to fuck with them. Then the Smoke Monster returns, takes Mr Eko, and any thoughts of sunsets and idyllic beaches seem worthless.

  


.

  


But, absurdly, in a twist Sansa never saw coming, a sense of normalcy settles on the group. Juliet and Ben appear from the dreaded Others, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are kidnapped and then returned, and they bury more people than Sansa would ever want to bury. But the days tick on, Rose continues to tell her stories, Aaron continues to grow, and the ratio of unread to read books dwindles.

Sansa finds herself living a new version of her life, one where she wakes up with Jon beside her, where she returns to Jon at night, and where she learns about herself in the ways she reacts to and accepts these new paths.

“There's a story here,” Sansa sighs, on day forty, her gaze steady on Jon. The sea is cool around her ankles, the sand soft as it anchors her in the shallow tide. She stands tall, faces the pieces she’s been given, the way she's put them together, confident that this time might be the right way.

“Tell me it,” Jon asks, keeping his distance but smiling slightly.

“There’s a cautionary tale about a woman who gave up her life for a monster and who was rescued by the man who had been the hero all along.”

“Or there's the one about missed connections, a man being too stubborn to make things right, and a young woman who got herself out of a horrible situation and travelled all the way to Sydney on her own.”

“And then there's the one,” and this is the one that spans the weeks they've spent on this goddamn island, the ones where they've learned each other inside and out, both through necessity and through choice, and they've realised that life is too short to spend time not Together in the way that they've both wanted for a long time. “There's the one,” she says, arranges this into something Jon will agree with, “of the two people who tried something in the past, never took it further for fear of ruining what they had, and who reunited in indescribable circumstances, surrounded by a colourful cast of characters and a beautiful island setting.”

“And how does that one end?”

“Is it cheesy and cliche to end it like this?” Sansa asks, stepping forward and kissing Jon. They had their kiss in the hatch and there have been a couple since, nothing more and no discussions about it, but the timing feels right, if such a thing is possible.

“A little,” Jon mumbles when they pull back. “But isn’t a plane crash on a deserted island ridiculously cliche anyway?” which is something Sansa hasn’t considered before.

“Where have the Castaway jokes been all this time?”

“Alright, Locke’ll be Tom Hanks and --”

“And Wilson?”

“I don’t trust anything on this island, inanimate or not,” Jon says resoloutely. “The Smoke Monster will turn out to be Wilson or something. I honestly can’t predict it.”

“So not so cliche after all?”

“This part isn’t.” Jon wraps his arms around her, holds on tight. The water moves around Sansa’s ankles making her feel weightless, the feel of Jon an anchor, always there, always needed. “So, there’s something here about life being short, isn’t there?”

“And about being stubborn all those years ago and making stupid decisions that almost killed the both of us.” Sansa kisses the crook of Jon’s neck, the skin somehow still pale despite the constant sun. They’re winter kids, this isn’t the place for them, but it’s where they are right now and there’s making do and then there’s making happiness. Sansa’s still not sure true happiness is possible here while their family is out there thinking they’re dead but where’s that optimism? Where’s that hope that has been suffocated time and time again? “This feels right,” she says into his skin. “Doesn’t it?”

“It’s about the only thing that does on this fucking island,” which makes Sansa laugh, her arms around Jon’s neck, her back to the endless ocean, and the hope blooms and blooms and settles into something that she can live with.

 

 

 


End file.
